“You know,” she said, her ponytail whipping around as she turned to face me, “you don’t have to raise your hand to answer every question.”

Eleven-year-old me didn’t have anything much to say in response to that. I had been confused and disoriented by the worldview of this newly-arrived student who wore nothing but embroidered velour sweatsuits with false collars and seemed intent on competing with me. This was just more of the same.

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When I was in my early twenties (all my most pathetic stories begin with those words), I was desperate to create an album of music that made a Statement.

It wasn’t enough to just put a few of my best songs together and share it. Oh, no! Every song had to have a concept, and they had to weave together to say something bigger.

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Often, I’ll be in the middle of editing a video when I hesitate over a particular moment.

“I just looked really awkward right there,” I might say to myself. Or I cringe a little because I’m coming off as overly earnest or sanctimonious.

However, in order to share my work on the Internet, I’ve had to accept that the earnest, awkward person in those videos is the same one I look at in the mirror. The likeness is accurate.

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Sometimes I feel as though what I write here is the equivalent of something like, “You know a great snack for when you’re hungry? Take a little bit of peanut butter and smear it onto a cracker. Then, place another cracker on top. You’ve got a tiny peanut butter sandwich!”

Maybe I’m presenting an idea as something new, but it isn’t new at all. Maybe I’m seeing something that people have already seen, adding nothing.

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I am participating in a longitudinal study: What happens if a person doesn’t worry about whether they’re smart or not?

Granted, I'm the only one participating in this study. But that doesn't mean we can't learn something from the results.

I'm not saying that I don't care if I'm smart. It's just that, at a very early age, I developed enough confidence in my intelligence and capability to carry me through pretty much the rest of my life.

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